Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the fields of nanomedicine and pharmacology. In particular, the present disclosure provides novel, non-obvious, and useful functionalized nanoporous silicon particles (and compositions containing them), for delivery of genetic constructs to one or more cells, tissues, and/or organs of interest. Also provided are methods for introducing one or more selected nucleic acid molecules into target host cells, which are useful in a variety of diagnostic and/or therapeutic regimens.
Description of Related Art
To produce a therapeutic effect in an animal, an active agent must be made available at its desired site of action within the body in therapeutically-effective amounts. Delivery of certain active agents to particular sites within the body continues to pose a significant challenge in human and veterinary medicine. The bioavailability of an active agent may be affected by numerous factors, including, for example, the quantity of active agent administered, the extent and rate of its absorption from its administration site, its distribution or localization within one or more tissues, its biotransformation, its binding to one or more cell types, its functional half-life, and even its elimination and excretion from the body. A major challenge to the delivery of active agents is the numerous biological barriers within the body that must be traversed, including, for example the organs of the reticulo-endothelial system (RES), plasma protein binding, blood vessel wall, high interstitial pressure, and such like.
To overcome these biological barriers, and to reach desired plasma drug concentrations, patients are usually administered a much higher concentration of the active agent, which can often lead to therapy-related, or therapy-induced toxicity. A related factor accompanying unfavorable accumulation of the active agent at its desired target site is the development of acquired resistance.
Accordingly, there remains a need in the medical arts for compositions and methods of delivering such compositions, which circumvent drug-resistance mechanisms, which increase the therapeutic range of one or more active agent(s) without producing unwanted toxic side effects.